Supreme Court ruling could let GOP add 19 House seats and “clear the path for a one-party system”

As the Supreme Court prepares to rehear Louisiana v. Callais on October 15, Democratic voting rights groups are sounding the alarm: in a new report reviewed by Politico, Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund warn that scrapping Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could enable Republicans to redraw up to 19 House seats in their favor.

“While a ruling in time for next year’s midterms is unlikely, the organizations behind the report said that it’s not out of the question. Taken together, the groups identified 27 total seats that Republicans could redistrict in their favor ahead of the midterms — 19 of which stem from Section 2 being overturned,” Politico reports.

“Doing so would ‘clear the path for a one-party system where power serves the powerful and silences the people,” Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown said in a statement.

The report warns that as many as 30% of Congressional Black Caucus seats and 11% of  Congressional Hispanic Caucus seats could be redrawn out of existence.

Historically, Section 2 has served as the enforcement mechanism that allows plaintiffs to challenge voting maps that dilute minority vote strength through racial gerrymandering.. If Section 2 is gutted, states could redraw lines without fearing federal challenge on race‐dilution grounds.

The case that the Supreme Court will be hearing stems from Louisiana’s latest congressional map, which a federal court struck down in 2022 for illegally diluting Black voting strength. To comply, state lawmakers drew a second majority-Black district, expanding representation for roughly one-third of Louisiana’s population. But conservative challengers sued, arguing that using race as a central factor, even to fix a proven racial imbalance. constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In April, the Alliance for Justice warned that “if the court strikes down Louisiana’s congressional maps,” it would gut Section 2, “effectively dismantling one of the last remaining tools to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of racial equality at the ballot box.” 

Already, deep red Southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina are seen as particularly vulnerable. The report argues that those states could lose all Democratic representation. In more competitive Southern states such as Georgia, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, the number of safe Democratic seats could shrink significantly, says Politico.

In some states like Texas and Missouri, Republicans, pushed by President Donald Trump, are already working to redraw maps to expand their narrow House majority. 

The groups behind the report urge Democrats to respond with equally “aggressive and immediate” measures. 

Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo told Politico that the challenge would be “permanent” unless Democrats “play offense—redraw where possible, fight back, pass pro-democracy reforms, and hold this corrupted Court accountable.”